Raffaellos

Wotchers!

Something norty but  nice this week, with no actual baking required – Bonus!

An item that I usually have tucked away in a cupboard is a squeezy bottle of sweetened condensed milk – so that when I come across a recipe that uses just a small quantity, I don’t have to open a whole tin. Usually.

Not sure what happened to my squeezy bottle – but for the 2 tablespoons of condensed milk for last week’s choux pastry, I ended up having to open a 400ml tin.  So then I had to find something to use up the rest of the tin. My standard use for sweetened condensed milk is a deliciously creamy fudge, but for a change, I decided to look for something different.

Raffaellos are one of the lesser-known cousins of the milk chocolate and hazelnut (“Ambassador, with these Rocher, you’re really spoiling us”) Rocher. However, according to Wikipedia (so it must be true!) there’s also a coconut/almond version Ferrero Garden chocolate which, from the description (a half almond, surrounded by coconut cream, encased in wafer coated with coconut flakes) sounds even more like the confection created here.  But I’ve never heard of a Ferrero Garden (coconut) chocolate before today, so I’m calling these Raffaellos and that’s that! 😉

This is a variation on some chocolates I made a few months ago, and if there’s one thing I learned from that particular experimentation, it’s: start small. There are several layers to this piece of confectionery (almond, cream filling, crunchy coating, chocolate, coconut decoration), and a little generosity with the cream filling can mean a finished chocolate of such *ahem* ‘rustic’ proportions, Mary Berry would be horrified. Seriously. The ones I made before were beyond golf ball and heading rapidly towards snooker ball size.

ANYHOO…

A lesson learned is a tumpty-tumpty-tum as the saying goes, so let’s get on with the show! I’ve greatly reduced the original quantities, because I ended up with such a vast amount of filling, I kept running out of stuff to finish them with!

Raffaellos

100ml sweetened condensed milk
100g unsalted butter
100g dessicated coconut [1]
100g cream cheese, room temperature
4 tsp runny honey or agave nectar
100g whole almonds

• Put the butter and condensed milk into a saucepan and heat gently until the butter has melted.
• Add the 100g of dessicated coconut and stir to combine. Set aside to cool.
• Beat the cream cheese and honey until smooth and well combined.
• When the coconut mixture has cooled, add it to the cream cheese mixture and stir until thoroughly combined.
• Put the mixture into the fridge to firm up (about an hour).
• Toast the almonds by either dry-frying in a pan over medium heat or by laying them on a baking sheet in a 180°C, 160°C Fan oven for 10 minutes (I prefer this method, as they are less likely to scorch). Set aside to cool.

To coat [2]
Rice crispies cereal
300g white chocolate
200g dessicated coconut

• For Stage 1 of the coating process, it probably more efficient to work in small batches of about 10 at a time.
• Pour some rice crispies into a bowl ready for coating.
• Take a small amount of filling (5g is ideal) and press an almond into the centre.
• Roll it between your hands into a ball shape, then drop the ball into the bowl of cereal.
• When you have 10 balls of filling in the bowl of cereal, swirl the bowl around so that the balls get thoroughly coated in the rice crispies. Don’t worry if there are a few gaps, they’ll be filled in by the next step.
• One at a time, take the coated balls of filling out of the bowl and roll between your hands until the rice crispie coating has been pressed smooth and there are no gaps.
• Set the coated balls on a baking tin.
• When all the balls have been coated (or you’ve run out of almonds as I did!), put the baking tin in the fridge to firm up (about an hour). If you don’t want to wait, put the tin in the freezer while you melt the chocolate.
• Break the chocolate into pieces and put into a glass bowl over gently warming water to melt. NB White chocolate – even the most deluxe brand – is notoriously temperamental to melt. Usually, I melt chocolate in the microwave, but for white chocolate, I always use the much gentler water-bath method. Also, don’t stir. Just let it sit and melt by itself. If, after 10 minutes there are still one or two lumps, then GENTLY fold the mixture over once or twice to help it along. Remove from the heat and move to your working area. I suggest keeping the bowl over the hot water, to help keep it liquid.
• Remove the tray of fillings from the fridge/freezer and set it to the left of the melted chocolate.
• Pour the dessicated coconut into a bowl and put it to the right of the melted chocolate.
• Put a plate to the right of the bowl of coconut for the finished chocolates.
• For each chocolate
  • Coat in white chocolate. There are several methods you can use to do this, but the best approach I found was to hold the rice crispie coated ball in a small pair of sugar tongs and use a spoon to pour the chocolate over and then tap gently on the side of the bowl to get rid of any excess chocolate. Fill any gaps by dipping the ball into the chocolate on the spoon.
  • Drop the coated ball into the coconut and swirl the bowl around so that it gets thoroughly coated. It’s best to do this one at a time, otherwise the balls stick together.
  • When it’s fully coated, put it on the plate.
  • When finished, put the balls in the fridge to set fully.
  • Keep chilled.

[1] The dessicated coconut provides a textured filling, which personally I like, but which might not appeal to everyone, so I have come up with a solution: substitute with 100g coconut milk powder and leave out the honey. I get my coconut milk powder from the local oriental foods shop. It looks just like regular milk powder, but it has the sweet aroma of coconut. I’ve just checked the labelling and the brand I’ve got does contain some milk solids, so if you’re lactose intolerant, please bear this in mind. The mixture is much softer than that with dessicated coconut, so it requires more chilling. Edit: It’s been (quite rightly) pointed out to me that, if you’re lactose intolerant, then a little bit of milk products in your coconut milk powder is, frankly, the very least of your worries with this recipe. *lying* I was just testing – glad you’re all paying attention 😉

[2] Exact quantities will depend on the size and number of balls that you make.